Here’s a project we haven’t heard about in a while! American Gods, the new TV series based on Neil Gaiman‘s deeply meditative fantasy novel about faith and mythology, has its Shadow Moon, and by that, we mean it’s main character. Playing the man caught in the cataclysmic battle between the old and new gods is Ricky Whittle, who you may know as Lincoln, the Grounder with a heart of gold in the CW’s post-apocalyptic drama The 100. Whittle has experience surviving what happens after the end of the world, but can he help stop it from happening?

That was followed up by some words from American Gods showrunner Bryan Fuller, who reiterated that when it comes to casting the series, he intends to reflect the diversity of the book and it’s themes.

I’m thrilled that Ricky has been cast as Shadow. His auditions were remarkable. The process of taking a world out of the pages of a book, and putting it onto the screen has begun.

American Gods is, at its heart, a book about immigrants, and it seems perfectly appropriate that Shadow will, like so much else, be coming to America. I’m delighted Ricky will get to embody Shadow. Now the fun starts.

In American Gods, Shadow is an ex-convict who is released from prison but has no life to go back to. Instead, he takes a job as bodyguard for a mysterious man called Mr. Wednesday, who’s really the Norse god Odin, and invites Shadow on a quest to find the remnants of the old gods of ancient Norse, Greek, Celtic and Egyptian fame, whose power is being usurped by the new gods representing modern society’s obsessions with media and technology.

As for Whittle, his being cast as the lead on American Gods doesn’t bode well for his character on The 100, which has been known to kill off main characters when the story suits it. I guess we’ll have to see what fate awaits Lincoln later this season.

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